The Prince · Chapter
Dedication explained
Machiavelli dedicates his work to Lorenzo de' Medici, offering his knowledge of great men's actions gained from experience and study as a gift, and expresses his hope that Lorenzo will attain greatness.
What happens
Machiavelli dedicates his work to Lorenzo de' Medici, offering his knowledge of great men's actions gained from experience and study as a gift, and expresses his hope that Lorenzo will attain greatness.
Themes in this chapter
The Role of Fortune and Virtù
Machiavelli references fortune's role in his own suffering and in the greatness he hopes Lorenzo will achieve.
The Importance of Public Perception
Machiavelli emphasizes that his work is unadorned, relying on truth and substance rather than rhetorical embellishment to gain favor.
Characters to notice
- Niccolò Machiavelli
The author, presenting his work and expressing his devotion and suffering under fortune's malignity.
- Lorenzo de' Medici
The dedicatee, addressed as 'your Magnificence', to whom Machiavelli offers his treatise.
Key passages
“Those who strive to obtain the good graces of a prince are accustomed to come before him with such things as they hold most precious, or in which they see him take most delight; whence one often sees horses, arms, cloth of gold, precious stones, and similar ornaments presented to princes, worthy of their greatness.”
People seeking a prince's favor typically offer their most valued possessions or things the prince enjoys, like fine horses, weapons, or jewels.
Machiavelli sets up the conventional gift-giving to contrast with his own offering of knowledge.
“Desiring therefore to present myself to your Magnificence with some testimony of my devotion towards you, I have not found among my possessions anything which I hold more dear than, or value so much as, the knowledge of the actions of great men, acquired by long experience in contemporary affairs, and a continual study of antiquity; which, having reflected upon it with great and prolonged diligence, I now send, digested into a little volume, to your Magnificence.”
Wishing to show my devotion, I offer you my understanding of great men's deeds, gained from experience and study, now condensed into this small book.
Machiavelli presents his work as the most precious gift he can give.
“Nor do I hold with those who regard it as a presumption if a man of low and humble condition dare to discuss and settle the concerns of princes; because, just as those who draw landscapes place themselves below in the plain to contemplate the nature of the mountains and of lofty places, and in order to contemplate the plains place themselves upon high mountains, even so to understand the nature of the people it needs to be a prince, and to understand that of princes it needs to be of the people.”
It is not presumptuous for a commoner to advise princes, just as a painter must stand below to see mountains and above to see plains; a prince understands the people, and the people understand the prince.
Machiavelli justifies his authority to write about princely rule despite his lowly status.